A really neat and useful feature that has been added to the BlackBerry 10 platform is Device Monitor. We saw it emerge in BlackBerry 10.2 but it wasn't really useful until OS 10.2.1. It allows you to take a deeper look at your usage and monitor which apps are using the most battery life as well as resources. What is great about Device Monitor is that it is built in. No longer do you need a third party app do get this information.

A shortcut to Device Monitor can be enabled in the Quick Settings menu so you can quickly access it. Otherwise, you can find it in Settings>App Manager>Device Monitor.

Upon launching the app you get taken to the battery section where you can see a quick glance at your battery usage, since its last charge, in a graph chart. It also tells you how much battery life is left. Below the graph chart is a list of the apps that are using up the most battery life, with the one using the most at the top of the list. You can change the view of the details to show usage in the last 12, 24 or 48 hours, too. Just use the dropdown menu found the top corner of Device Monitor. When charging, no app details appear in the battery section, only your charging status.

Device Monitor Battery Status

Device Monitor doesn't just show you your battery usage though - you can also see the status of your CPU, Memory and Storage - just use the tabs across the top. Again, you'll see a chart (Memory and Storage) for a quick overview. Within each section you can tap into an app to see more information. Such as app version and developer details, as well as file size. You're also presented with more charts showing that particular app's battery usage - CPU usage, memory usage, mobile data usage and Wi-FI usage. So you can really see how much resource a specific app is using. Handy when you want to narrow down an issue you're having.

Device Monitor App View  Device Monitor App View

When in app information view, you also have options to delete the app or close it. Close it will shutdown all processes of the app.

Device Monitor is definitely a feature I recommend using, most especially when you're having some issues. It helps to narrow down the cause of the problem. When you have Device Monitor added to your Quick Settings menu, you can see the battery percentage from there too, also handy sometimes.

Device Monitor CPU Status  Device Monitor Quick Settings Battery status

If you haven't tried out Device Monitor yet, it's definitely something you should check out today. Visit our BlackBerry 10 Help section for more tips, tricks and how-to's. You can also check out our complete guide to BlackBerry 10.2.1
 

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